Kempelen 2.0

I just released an application interface “kII” to control the SpeakJet, an integrated robot-voice soundchip from Magnevation, by MIDI.
Some of the features include Jaw-/Tongue-Position Control, Note-pitched voicings, subtractive synthesis built up with the SpeakJet’s five oscillators as well as a small integrated harmonizer module. You can set up a base note and a scale and have therefore absolute control!

kII stands for “Kempelen Two”: Baron Wolfang von Kempelen has been a hungarian inventor and creator of famous automats. Whereas his most famous creatin has been the “Turkish Chessplayer” (which was a late-revealed fake with a chess-player sitting inside), he also invented one of the first talking machines ever. Baron Kempelen lived from 1734 to 1804.

I released all plans and software on midibox.org. You will also find dedicated DIY-building instructions for the needed IIC-SpeakJet-Module and a Core-Module. midibox.org is a DIY-Community founded by Thorsten Klose who released MBHP and MIOS under an open license that forbids commercial use. Please be fair and respect that.

The main goal for the development is not the generation of words or true speech, rather than an experimental approach to generate an interactive musical interface for phonetic experiences.
Watch out for future project descriptions!

If you are improving the application, please contact me or add a comment on this page, so I can update the project!

Features:
· Full MSA and SCP Control via Midi!
· Trigger Allophones and SoundFX by Notes
· Trigger Allophones only by Notes
· Trigger SoundFX only by Notes
· Jaw/Tongue control: set position of jaw and tongue by CC, play pitched Allophone by Notes
· Different Jaw/Tongue sets available: Vowels/Consonants/Pauses
· Change the pitch of currently played Allophones by Notes 0..59
· Play the 5 Oscillators by Notes, one OSC per Channel
· Harmonic subtractive syntesis Multi-OSC playmode by Notes(!)
· Control Waveforms (shapes) of harmonic synthesis Multi-OSC mode
· Change Allophone Pitch by using the 14bit PitchBend-Wheel
· Control Bend with CH_AFTERTOUCH
· Control Speed by CC
· Control Master Volume by CC
· Send Pauses by CC
· Send Next Slow/High/Low/Fast by CC
· Control OSC-Frquencies and Levels by CC
· Control ENV-Frequency and Type by CC
· Control Distortion (OSC 4 & 5) by CC
· Fire Phrases by CC
· Supports System Realtime Messages START, STOP, CONTINUE, RESET
· Send PANIC by Foot & AllNotes/SoundsOFF Messages
· Custom assignable controls by editing the definition listing (IIC_SpeakJetMidiDefines.h)